Long Exposure

No fast food for the eye,
this – no flash-in-the-pan, slapped

on the photographic plate
like paparazzi-pizza ... but slow-

cooked in the black box half the day:
a concentrating taste, the spirit

of the place distilled, drip
by drip, like the portrait-painter's

brush, dip, dip, returns the sitter
to pure body, to still-life. Here

you could walk through the camera's
gaze and wave and gurn, and leave

not a trace of yourself on its
composure. Perhaps a slight smear.